Hope Unstoppable: 31 Day Devotional, Page 4

  Lord, we come to You with awe in our hearts at how wonderful You are. We are thankful that You have the final say in all matters concerning our life. We ask forgiveness of our sins, and we pray for an extra downpouring of Your grace. We need You to heal our lives, to make our crooked paths straight. Thank you for those beautiful words of assurance You have given us through Your Son.

  In Jesus’ name,

  Amen

  Day 16

  “Come to me all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

  —Matthew 1:28-30 (NIV)

  Jesus not only makes a great point in this breathtaking and strikingly bold passage, but He points out something obvious that most of us already realize. We tend to make things hard. And sometimes that happens by way of us trying to make things easier for ourselves. If that isn’t a psychological puzzle, I don’t know what is. In essence, God requires very little of us—to repent and obey.

  When you get down to brass tacks, after believing in Christ and accepting Him as our Lord and Savior, we must choose to follow Him. In our striving to be like Him, the enemy loves to swat us down like flies, but thanks to Jesus’ unending mercy and bountiful supply of grace, we might tumble, but we will get up again. Don’t let the enemy hold you down. You are a child of the Lord God Almighty—an heir to all of His promises. When Jesus died, He made available to us the many promises in God’s Word. All we need to do is dive in and receive the good things He has already given us.

  Are you burdened and weary? Has life become so heavy that you don’t know if you can bear the load alone anymore? Great news. You don’t have to. Give it all to Christ. Slide your mountain of problems over to Him and let Him deal with them all while you enjoy yourself, find peace, and rest under the shadow of His glorious wing. And when things don’t seem to be moving as quickly as you’d like, correcting themselves at the pace you desire, slide that concern over to Him, too. Press into the Lord like never before. He wants you to. His Word invites you to do just that. Pray bold prayers. The psalmist recorded some of the boldest prayers of them all, his own. They were wracked with tears and agony, but rife with praise and exultation for the One who would hear them. He loves you. He cares deeply for you—so deeply that He asks you to let go of your heavy load and exchange it for something light and easy. Learn from Him and rest your weary soul.

  Lord, thank You that You willingly take our burdens, that You work things out for our good, that You care about the desires of our hearts. Lord, we lay at Your feet our agonizing trials, our burning heaps of trouble, the chaos and problems in our lives that can feel never-ending. Lord, we don’t know how to fix them. We can’t carry this heavy load anymore. We are in need of supernatural assistance that only You can provide. Our hearts and minds are open to You alone. We surrender our heavy burdens to You and wait in quiet rest while You work things out in Your time, in Your way. Thank you for generously offering to bless us in this way. You are more than we could ever dream of. Praise You!

  In Jesus’ name,

  Amen

  Day 17

  And my God will meet all your needs according to the riches of his glory in Christ Jesus.

  —Philippians 4:19 (NIV)

  There are times in our lives when the list of things we need to survive is so long it seems it can wrap around the earth, twice.

  God knows what we need and when we need it. It’s our responsibility to lean hard on Him during those seasons of desperation in our lives. He cares about our needs from parking spots to healing diseases. He cares about our heart’s desires. He cares deeply about the needs of our spirit. He cares for you. He wants you to have unstoppable faith in Him that He will do what He deems is best in all situations, no matter how impossible they seem. He hears your cries. He cares about the agony you’re in. He is well able to assist you. There is nothing He will not do for you if you ask with the right motives, and it is in His will for you.

  He is your father and He loves you intimately—intensely—with His whole heart, with His entire being. Stay close to Him all day. Don’t waver in your faith. Lay it all out for Him and then just breathe God. We know His timing is perfect, and if He asks us to wait for things and situations to work out, He is sanding down our rough edges, making us who we need to be in Christ—who we were destined to be all along. Be joyous in this season of waiting. Find your joy in Him, in His Son, His divine Holy Spirit who dwells within you. Lean hard on Jesus who has ALL authority of everything in heaven and on earth, for whom nothing is impossible. Know that He has your best interests at heart. He will complete His good work in you. In the meantime, be a light for Jesus, a beacon of hope in this dark world for others. It’s what the enemy hates and what the Lord loves most.

  Lord, praise You for caring about our troubles, our needs both small and great, and our heart’s desires. Thank you for giving us Jesus who intercedes on our behalf, our Savior, our attorney and our judge in the heavenlies. Thank you that through Him we are bound for victory. No man, no hell can hold us back from the glorious plans You have for us. We are the head and not the tail. We are alive now in Christ and we will be forever more because of His great sacrifice.

  In Jesus’ name,

  Amen

  Day 18

  Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.

  —James 1:2-4 (NIV)

  Even if you did something wrong, God will work it out for your good. That’s pretty incredible when you think about it. He will fight for you if you are truly sorry and repent. He forgives and does not look back. He is interested in you, in your spiritual journey with Him. This is great news for many of us. God takes us under His wing because we are His children bought by a heavy price, the blood of His Son. There is nothing He will not do for us as long as it is in the parameters of His perfect will.

  Are you facing many trials? James says to consider it pure joy. That alone is no easy feat. Why would he even suggest it? A trial is painful, agonizing, nothing anyone would choose for themselves willingly. He backs up his statement and then answers the tough question of why. Because the testing of your faith will build perseverance. To persevere is to come up higher after going through something hellacious. It means you came through it tougher, stronger, galvanized in Him far more than you were before. God is interested in more than rescuing you. He’s interested in the state of your spiritual well-being. Faith is a muscle, and during trials we are put into one heavy-duty weightlifting routine. It’s afterward, once the floodwaters have receded and the horizon is once again visible, that we come away stronger in Him and ready to take on His wonderful plan for our lives.

  Lord, we crave the desires of Your heart for our lives. We come with arms raised, hearts and minds open, and pour out our praise to You. We trust in Your perfect plan for our lives. We know that nothing we have done can change that plan. You are all-powerful. We know that You can get us to where You need us to be in one breath, with one touch of your divine mercy and favor, one glance, one moment of grace. There is nothing too difficult for You. Thank you for accepting our repentance and working out our troubles for us. Although we long for the knot we’ve embroiled ourselves in to become untangled, we know that You will do so at the appointed time. Thank you for caring so deeply for us. Thank you for blessing us even through the trials.

  In Jesus’ name,

  Amen

  Day 19

  If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you. But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind.

  —James 1:5-6 (NIV)

  The Bible
says that God is a rewarder of those who seek Him. Seeking Him with your whole heart is part of God’s plan for intimacy with us. He wants us to be a part of the bigger picture. He loves our involvement with Him. The more we yearn to be near Him, study His Word, and spend time with Him in prayer, He reveals His goodness, showers us with His mercy and grace, and pours His favor upon us. I’m pretty sure we can all use those things poured over us.

  James is telling us that when we lack wisdom we should consult with God. I’ve tried things my way and seen how that’s turned out. Not well. I’m ready to live a one hundred percent God-approved, God-driven life even if that means I have to make a spiritual U-turn once in a while. I hope you are, too.

  The great thing about God (and there are many) is that He generously allows us to make as many U-turns as needed to get us back into His perfect will for our lives. When we ask God for wisdom, the way in which we know where He wants us to go is to follow the path of peace. If you don’t have peace either way, you can continue to pray, or if you’re forced to step out in faith in one direction and you don’t see that working out, don’t be afraid to take a step back and reevaluate with God once again.

  A careful, prayerful life lends to a much more stable journey than running amuck and following our flesh. Our flesh is usually wrong about a lot of things. It tends to act on emotion. God acts on wisdom and reason. Flesh thrives on chaos, drama, and instant gratification. God thrives on peace, joy, and the perfecting of our faith. When we bend our ear and our spiritual will to Him, we will undoubtedly live wiser, and more stable lives while enjoying the rich spiritual fruits provided by His Holy Spirit. Now that we’ve tied ourselves to Jesus, we need to let Him envelop us like a membrane, unbreakable, undeterred by the things that surround us, completely soaking in His goodness and the things He wants for us day to day.

  The second part of the verse talks about faith. Have you noticed a theme here? God can give you all the things that line up with His perfect will for your life, but He needs you to believe that He is capable of achieving them. Our unbelief disables God from proceeding with our requests and dims the light of His powers in our lives. Jesus said that in His hometown He wasn’t able to do many miracles (Mark 6:4-5). That alone is a clear example that our faith is the key that ignites the miracles the Lord is willing to give us. We must not doubt, not waver in disbelief when we ask something of God—not beg—as we are His children and we can come boldly before the throne of Grace and lay down our requests.

  Lord, thank you for filling us with Your Holy Spirit so we can communicate with You all the days of our lives. As we walk this journey with Jesus staunchly by our sides, we open our hearts to hear His precious whispers to our spirit. Make clear to us the path that You desire for our lives. Put Your heart’s desires inside of us so we too may desire what You have deemed perfect for us. And we ask forgiveness for the times we’ve had a disbelieving heart in any situation. Lord, we cry out to You and ask that You help our disbelief (Mark 9: 24).

  Lord, thank you for filling us with a renewed belief in You and all You are capable of doing. We have mountains ahead of us that only You can supernaturally move and we say to those mountains get out of our way. Our all-powerful God is here to obliterate you. With this, we willingly step into a season of Your divine favor and receive the wonderful things that You have planned for us. We take back what the enemy has stolen and declare what the world sees as a season of chaos in our lives as a season of joy and thanksgiving as we fully commit ourselves to You and Your kingdom.

  Praise You in Jesus’ name,

  Amen

  Day 20

  For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

  —Ephesians 2:10 (NIV)

  God loves us. He has loved us from the moment we were simply an idea, an inclination on His part. He has molded us in His very image so that we might do good for the world, for ourselves, through His Son whom he sacrificed for us. That alone is a heady, explosive thought, so magnificent it’s difficult to wrap our head around. People often love their children with an unbreakable bond. The natural inclination is to protect them from harm and yet our loving God sacrificed His own Son in a most horrific manner to trample death and purchase our souls with His blood. How many of us would sacrifice our own child for a world full of people, some of whom won’t ever acknowledge Him on this earth? That’s why it is so powerfully beautiful for God to see our faith, those of us who accept and appreciate the supreme sacrifice Jesus made for us. And as if that wasn’t enough, He bids us to do the good things that He prepared for us in advance.

  We are not simply a cast of billions to our loving Father. He knows us. He spoke these words to the prophet Jeremiah: "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations." (Jeremiah 1:15 NIV)

  God has known every single person who has ever existed before they were formed in their mother’s womb. He knows you. He cares about you. He created a perfect plan and perfect destiny for you to live out long before you were ever born. The plan He has worked out for you is a part of the story woven in the larger tapestry of the story of His Son. We are all a part of Jesus’ story. Jesus is alive and well in heaven, but on earth we are his arms and his legs. We are his body (1 Corinthians 12:12-14). We were designed to do good for His kingdom. Some of Jesus’ last words before His accession were, “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” (Matthew 28:19 NIV) Let’s follow our Savior’s directive and go. Shine the light of Jesus. You already have the best gift Christ can give you: the guarantee of eternity. Let’s help others find it, too.

  And if you feel anguished about having thwarted God’s good plan for your life, don’t distress. He promises that He will make even the roughest situations work for our good. His love surpasses, erases our mistakes. He has the ability to reroute our journey over and over again. If we are willing to obey, He is willing to help us achieve His dreams for our lives.

  Lord, we are so honored and humbled that we were on Your mind since the beginning of creation. That You have not only known us but took the time to devise a perfect plan for our lives. Help us shine the light of Your Son on a weary world. Help us accomplish the good work laid out before us so we can run the race for You.

  In Jesus’ name,

  Amen

  Day 21

  And provide for those who grieve in Zion—

  to bestow on them a crown of beauty

  instead of ashes,

  the oil of joy

  instead of mourning,

  and a garment of praise

  instead of a spirit of despair.

  They will be called oaks of righteousness,

  a planting of the Lord

  for the display of his splendor.

  —Isaiah 61:3 (NIV)

  God cares for you. As any good father, He is determined to care for you and the deep grief of your soul. He cares about your circumstances, and if you cry out to Him, He will help you. He’s not only offering to provide for you in a get-by manner, He’s promising you a crown of beauty instead of ashes. All those bridges we burned? Those relationships we burned to cinder? Our future that looks like nothing more than a smoldering heap? God is ready to go in and crown you with beauty and take the ashes away. And on top of that, He is offering the oil of joy instead of mourning. A garment of praise instead of despair. He will call you an oak of righteousness, a planting of the Lord for His splendor. He is coming to your rescue at a feverish pace with unimaginable riches for your pain.

  He is planting you in the good soil of His love. Let your roots run deep in Him, in His Word, with faith in His Son. Give Him your ashes, mourning and despair, right now and receive the beauty, joy, and garment of praise. Cry out to Him and allow Him to fill you with His Holy Spirit. He is waiting to make everything new. He has a good future in store ahead of you. All of th
ose impossibilities looming in the natural can be wiped away with one touch of His favor. His Word promises that He will reverse our darkest hours. Hold tight to these promises. Remind Him of His Word. He is unchanging and is not a man that He should lie. Show up at the throne of grace in faith, with the confidence of a child of God, and pray bold prayers today. Move mountains with your faith in Him. Jesus Himself says we have the power to do so. Obliterate the darkness and fill it with His light.

  Lord, thank you that You receive our ashes, our mourning, our despair. We give all of it to You. Thank you that in return You give us good things. Our praise for You will forever be on our lips. Thank you for helping us in our desperate need. Thank you for Your spirit of peace while we watch as You make our crooked places straight.

  In Jesus’ precious name,

  Amen

  Day 22

  God is our refuge and strength,

  an ever-present help in trouble.